“This was a serious error of judgement,” a BBC spokesman later said as Baker offered “sincere apologies” on his Twitter feed for the “stupid, unthinking gag pic”.

“Was supposed to be joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys and race, so rightly deleted,” he said.

An ‘unexpected audience’

But in thousands of tweets that followed, Baker was accused of making a racist joke about a newborn baby with African heritage.

“Wow, that didn’t take long,” columnist and editor Eva Akase Simpson wrote, accusing Baker of trolling a two-day-old baby and comparing him to a chimpanzee.

Baker’s sacking has reopened a debate about offensive social media posts as the Government considers measures to regulate companies over harmful content.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, pose with their newborn son Prince Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019 in Windsor (Photo: Dominic Lipinski/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

And it has also highlighted – once again – the risks that those in the public eye face when sharing their thoughts on social media.

This happens to people all the time because it’s difficult to know who we are talking to on a platform like Twitter.

“When we’re on social media, we’re all performing versions of ourselves, but we can’t always be sure who our audience is. And sometimes we find we have an unexpected audience who would prefer a different act altogether,” Graham Meikle, a professor of communication and digital media at the University of Westminster, tells i, adding that he does not condone Baker’s tweet.

‘Should have known better’

Baker is far from the first celebrity to be caught up in a social media race row.

Actress Rosanne Barr’s show was cancelled in the US last year for a tweet comparing a black former senior adviser to President Barack Obama to an ape.

“I should have known better. Forgive me. My joke was in bad taste,” she later said.

Roseanne Barr attends during 2018 Disney, ABC, Freeform Upfront at Tavern On The Green on May 15, 2018 in New York City. (Photo: Getty)

In the wake of the Manchester terrorism attack, Katie Hopkins left her LBC phone-in show after a tweet that called for a “final solution” to Islamic terrorism. She later altered the post to read “true solution”, saying there had been a “mis-type”.

Several high-profile personalities vowed not to appear on the station until she was removed.

YouTube star Jack Maynard, who has 1.5 million followers, left I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! to defend himself in 2017 after The Sun said he had previously posted a series of racist and homophobic tweets.

He later apologised, saying he was “young” and “careless” when he sent the “completely unacceptable” posts, adding: “Don’t put anything online you wouldn’t say to your mum.”

‘The line varies significantly’

Who better to ask about how best to operate on social media than 14-year-old “Generation Z influencer” Jenk Oz, who at 12 became the UK’s youngest chief executive and has thousands of hits a day with his online magazine, iCoolKid, for children aged eight to 15.

“Beyond commonly accepted rules of good taste, the line is out of your control and in the eyes of the reader,” he tells i.

“What offends some readers does not even spark a reaction in others – making it tough to push the boat out too far and not get caught in the storm.

“The audience wants open, honest and genuine dialogue from you, but only when they agree with you, otherwise they slam you.

Jenk Oz attends London Evening Standard’s Progress 1000: London’s Most Influential People event at on October 19, 2017. (Photo: Getty)

“The line varies significantly by age right now. Younger kids sometimes get a pass early on, but it can come back to haunt you in a few years’ time when you are applying for a job and someone brings up your divisive comments, and even has the screenshot on their phone.

“Everything is public and everything is game even when you think it’s private, because you chose to put it there in the first place.”

“I am very conscious of provocation and divisiveness when posting on any platform,” Jenk adds. “I try to post optimistic and encouraging content that people can rally around rather than trying to spark engagement, because I know the fire will come and I am too young to stomach that.”

‘People need to take ownership’

Baker looks as though he will have to take steps to rebuild his career after saying his tweet was “ridiculous, stupid and idiotic” while insisting he is not a racist.

“I’ve seen these things happen to other people but you never think it’s going to happen to you,” he said.

The tweet was “unconscious and ridiculous,” he said, adding that he was not some “slathering, secret racist”.

On Twitter, he wrote that the call to fire him from the BBC was a “masterclass of pompous faux-gravity”, while the Corporation said: “Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us.”

“People say, ‘You’re making light of racism’,” Baker told reporters on his doorstep.

“I’m not. I’m making light of my situation. I am that person now who did this on Twitter.”

“God love you, Archie,” he added. “We got off on the wrong foot.”

Show Racism the Red Card, the UK’s leading anti-racism education charity, says Baker’s “poorly judged attempt at humour” was “by his own admission stupid and unthinking”. But, it adds, “It was an exceptionally ill-judged and ill-thought out post that has caused offence and a number of people to question the motives behind the post.

“As soon as the connotations of the post were pointed out, he removed the post and apologised. Show Racism the Red Card welcomes this apology and acknowledgement that he made an ‘enormous mistake’.

“However, we would also like to reiterate that people need to take ownership of, and responsibility for, social media posts, and therefore need to very carefully consider the implications of any such posts before sharing online.”

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